Robert Pepper

Robert Pepper - Participant

Robert Pepper helps lead Facebook’s connectivity and technology policy activities focusing on infrastructure and connectivity including new technology development, deployment and adoption. In this role, he works with policymakers and industry players to develop strategies to make the Internet more inclusive. Pepper previously was Cisco’s Vice President for Global Technology Policy helping governments develop broadband plans, and address wireless and spectrum policy, the Internet of Things, security, privacy and Internet governance.

Pepper was Chief of the Office of Plans and Policy and Chief of Policy Development at the FCC for 16 years beginning in 1989 where he led teams designing and implementing the first U.S. spectrum auctions, developing policies promoting the development of the Internet, implementing telecommunications legislation, and planning for the transition to digital television.

His academic appointments included faculty positions at the Universities of Iowa, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and as a research affiliate at Harvard University. He chairs the U.S. Department of State’s Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy and has served on the board of the U.S. Telecommunications Training Institute, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Spectrum Management Advisory Committee and the UK’s OFCOM Spectrum Advisory Board.

Pepper received his BA. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.